peirasticadj.
/pʌɪˈrastɪk/, U.S. /paɪˈræstɪk/ Chiefly Philosophy.
Involving, or performing, an experiment; speculative, experimental, tentative.Originally with reference to one of the classes into which the Platonic dialogues were divided by ancient commentators (see esp. Diogenes Laertius Lives Eminent Philosophers iii. §49).
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > endeavour > trial or experiment > [adjective]
tentative1588
tentatorya1624
peirasticala1653
peirastic1656
probational1670
experimental1817
experimentative1825
1656 T. Stanley Hist. Philos. II. v. 47 Of Plato's Dialogues are Physick,..Logick,..Ethick,..Politick,..Pirastick.
1759 F. Sydenham Synopsis Wks. Plato 9 The Maieutic Dialogues..were supposed to resemble Giving the Rudiments of the Art; as the Peirastic were, to represent a Skirmish, or Trial of Proficiency.
1800 Monthly Mag. 9 582 This work is wholly of the pirastic kind.
1859 C. Kingsley Tennyson in Misc. I. 215 One..belonging to a merely speculative and peirastic school.
1904 R. J. Farrer Garden of Asia 26 The hideous arsenal whose Peirastic explosions periodically shatter the silence of the glades.
1996 Rhetoric Rev. 14 240 The core of dialectic, its peirastic or Socratic function, is coeval with the discovery of the fallacies that make the fireworks of sophistry possible.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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